by Lan Chan
“She’s terrified.”
“She should be.” He shook his head.
“Do you think they got a look at the logo on the van?”
“Probably. But they won’t make the connection.”
I trusted his judgement on that. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure how else I was going to get them to look the other way.”
He blew out a breath. “Let it never be said that a day with you is dull.”
“This sort of shit does tend to happen around me a lot, doesn’t it?” Then I remembered something. “Can I please borrow your phone?”
He pointed to the glove compartment. I held the phone over one ear and my hand over the other as it rang. The machine at Naveen’s café picked up. Crap. To leave a message or not? The Psi-Ops would have no qualms about breaching someone’s privacy in the name of a pointless investigation. I went cryptic just in case.
“Naveen, it’s me. It was great catching up today. Next time we’ll go somewhere in Kew Gardens. My treat.”
I hoped the absurdity of the message would clue Naveen in on why I needed him to cover for me. He’d lived in the Slums long enough to know a shady situation when it presented itself. When I hung up, Adam’s brow was raised. “Do I want to know how you know someone who lives near the Row?”
I shook my head. “No, you don’t.”
If I opened that can of worms, I’d have to explain to him why I had a vendetta against Shadowman.
6
Oz’s puzzled face stared back at me from across the table. It wasn’t often that something I said stunned him so thoroughly. I guess when you could read people’s minds, there wasn’t much that surprised you.
“Make the sound again,” he said.
I hooked my index finger into my mouth and then flicked it out, making a small popping sound.
“One more time,” Zeke said from my left.
I did it again.
“It was sharper than that,” Adam corrected. He curled his lips over his teeth and sucked in air. It made a similar popping sound but much louder.
“This is really unappetizing,” Bianca noted. “Can we not talk about work over dinner?”
“You were the one who asked!” I angled my head over the top of hers to see if I could check out what was happening in the kitchen. Though the door was ajar, all I could make out was Lily’s back. If the others had reservations about Lily cooking, none of them voiced it.
“Okay, I take it back,” Bianca said. “I shouldn’t have asked how your day went.”
My stomach growled. I placed my head on Zeke’s shoulder and made a pitiful, dying sound. “I really need to eat something.”
“You had a sandwich when you got home an hour ago,” he reminded me. Despite this, he handed me the last spring roll on his plate. I didn’t even hesitate to take it. “Should someone go in there and help her?”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Don’t even think about it. She’s as controlling in the kitchen as she is in the lab. Just let her do her thing.”
I had concerns about what her thing was. Trust Rich to schedule Lily on the dinner roster on a night he wouldn’t be home. In true Lily fashion, the table had been set with razor-edge precision. Each place setting held a tiny square dish made of black ceramic and filled with soy sauce. Lacquer chopsticks and a spoon sat atop the white napkin on the right, their angle set so parallel with the table’s edge that I wouldn’t be surprised if Lily had used a ruler to measure.
Don’t you think it’s suss that Rich just so happens to have a dinner reservation with his dad on the same night that Lily’s cooking? I asked Zeke through the link. Out of solidarity, everyone else had seen fit to be here. I was sure they all had better things to do on a Sunday night, and unlike me, they could come and go as they pleased during their time off.
I’m not feeding into your paranoia again, Zeke sent back. I sensed this was only half true. He just didn’t want to start me on one of my tangents. Especially since he knew I was just crabby from being hungry.
Someone else tentatively knocked on my shield. Zeke withdrew as much as he could without severing the link completely. The longer we allowed the link to feed between us, the harder it felt to shut ourselves off. Sometimes I’d try to reach for him when I was on patrol, and the lack of response, because he was so far away, was irritating.
Oz’s mind was just as powerful as Zeke’s, if not more so because of his Reader ability, but Zeke and I were connected in a way that was hard to explain.
I don’t mean to keep harping on in front of the others, Oz sent, but could you explain to me what you think happened one more time?
Even in thought speech, he was unflinchingly polite. It made saying no very difficult. My brain didn’t function well without fuel, and at the moment, I was slightly afraid that my fuel would be inedible when it came out.
It just came out of nowhere. One second I was hearing distortion in my head and the woman was writhing on the floor. Then her finger touched my ankle and I heard that popping sound and everything stopped.
Do you mind if I take a look? Did I mind him rifling through my memories? A couple of months ago, my response would have been a very emphatic no. Tonight, I stripped some of my outer shields and felt his presence glide past. My hand crept up and scratched at the base of my neck as his telepathy washed over me. We both relived the moment in Scarlet’s apartment when the noises had first filtered through my defences.
You should have been able to block that distortion easily, he noted.
I don’t think it’s the same physiological stuff that everyone exhibits, I told him. I can normally pick out base commands if I concentrate. This was just a garbled mess of overlapping sounds.
I walked him through the scene and then the second when the unconscious woman’s hand touched my ankle. I gritted my teeth as the mental vacuum caused a rush of sensation to flutter down my neck. And then just like that, Oz was gone.
One moment, our thoughts were concentrated on the image, and then just as the murmuring voices cleared, Oz was ejected from my mind. The force of the block was so strong that it had a physical backlash. He staggered back in his chair and would have toppled if I hadn’t reached across and grabbed his arm for leverage. With no time to be delicate, my arm grazed the table settings. Several wine glasses spun on their bases, red liquid threatening to spill over. They rotated once, tipped on an angle that should have guaranteed spillage, and then suddenly the vibration stopped. I withdrew my arm.
We watched on as Zeke set everything back in its place with his telekinesis. A thick droplet of wine hung suspended mid-air, wobbled, and then sort of glided back into the glass in a wave. No matter how many times I saw it happening, the whole thing still gave me goosebumps. Over the now-safe crockery, Oz’s pleasant face was grim. There was no need for me to connect with him to know that as a Reader, he’d probably never been forcibly knocked out of someone’s mind before.
“What just happened?” Zeke asked. Where did I even start? Rather than trying to explain, I sent him the mental cliff notes.
Shit, he sent. Indeed.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I told Oz, afraid to reach out to him again via telepathy in case it wouldn’t stick. Ever since Lily told me I wasn’t an esper, there was a secret part of me that feared the powers would disappear one day. Being an esper might not have been everything, but it was all that I’d ever known, and I was afraid of what I would be without my abilities.
Oz blinked and shook his head. His eyes flicked from side to side as though he was having trouble focusing. Before I could ask if he was okay, Lily kicked the kitchen door open and strode in with a square, ceramic tray laden with various types of sushi and sashimi. The table went quiet and more than a few mouths dropped open, including mine.
Back and forth she went, bringing out more trays until there wasn’t any more room on the table. The tray in front of me held a combination of hand rolls and flavoured rice balls. Each roll was set equidistant to the next and there wasn’t a single grain of white rice out of
place. In front of Zeke was a tray that held two perfectly staggered rows of sashimi lying on a bed of ribboned carrot. The flesh was a gorgeous translucent apricot. The mound of wasabi dressing in the corner looked like it had been piped on using a cake-decorating tool.
“Wow, Lil!” Bianca breathed. “When did you learn to do all this?”
Lily sat down in her spot on Oz’s left. “I watched some old videos online. It’s easy.”
What she meant was that it was easy for her with her uncompromising attention to detail and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. If she were able to fight, she’d be a force to reckon with. Sadly, that was a moot point. She reacted poorly to being touched and according to Rich, hand-to-hand combat was out of the question.
“It’s almost too pretty to eat,” Bianca said.
“Almost,” Zeke and I said in unison. Then we started stuffing our faces. Adam regaled them with his harrowing experience with Abigail, leaving out the part where he’d had to mess with the Psi-Ops agent.
Beside me, Zeke grunted. “That kid is out of control.”
“She’s probably desperate for attention,” Bianca added.
“Well, she sure knows how to make a scene,” Adam snorted. Then he turned to me. “I bet you were a similar terror when you were her age.”
I scowled at him in the middle of biting down on a hand roll. “I’ll have you know that I was perfectly behaved.”
“Is that right?”
“Soldiers follow orders, Adam. Tantrums get you killed.”
It didn’t occur to me that I’d said anything strange until their eyes glanced away from me. I’d never shared the particulars of my childhood with anyone but Zeke, and even then, he’d lifted the information when my mind was breaking, and the link established itself. If I had a choice, I’d take back his knowledge of how I’d grown up.
At eight, my parents had just moved us to Vietnam. My memory was hazy before then, but I remembered being cold a lot and loving the warmth of the Vietnamese climate. I wasn’t such a big fan of the monsoonal rain or the obstacle courses Mum made me run in the jungles outside of the city though.
I grew quiet and Zeke stepped in to change the subject. “So, I hear Ryan’s coming back soon.” It was an innocent enough comment but a Basic could feel the anticipation radiating off him.
Bianca gave Zeke a playful smile. “Looking forward to your hero coming home?”
After hearing the horror story of Bianca’s experience with Abigail, I had to pull out my Hades card in order to get Zeke to cooperate. He’d spent an hour in disbelief, another week in denial, and since then, he’d been asking me questions nonstop. Like I was some kind of expert on what went on in the mind of Ryan Manning. If anything, Zeke knew him better than I did.
“Shut up!” he snapped, cheeks burning pink.
“Maybe you should make a banner and go meet him at the airport,” Adam suggested. “Isn’t that what people do in all the romantic movies?”
“I can get you his flight details,” Lily said with a straight face. We cracked up laughing because she was being deadly serious. Lily stared at us like we’d lost our minds. It didn’t escape my notice that Oz had barely said a word. Every now and again, I’d look up and he’d be watching me, the food on his plate untouched.
Zeke crossed his arms over his chest. “You guys are the worst.”
I leaned over and smiled. “Technically, he owes you for helping his sister out. Maybe you can get him to take you on a tour of the ring.”
For a second, Zeke’s eyes widened before he shook his head. “Nah, I don’t want to come off as some kind of creepy stalker.”
“Oscar,” Lily piped up, “you have to eat dinner. It’s the third most important meal in the day.”
I glanced at him. “What gives, Oz? I really didn’t mean to throw you out of my head. It just sort of happened.”
Oz cleared his throat. “Maybe we should talk about this in private.”
Beside me, Zeke stiffened. Adam rolled his cigarette through the gaps in his fingers, and I leaned back in my chair.
“No holding out,” Bianca said. “That’s not how we do things here.”
Running a hand through his close-cropped tawny hair, Oz reached inside his jacket and pulled out a letter. When he unfolded it and held it up, my throat closed tight. A Greek Psi symbol in gold surrounded by a blue ring adorned the top left corner of the page. The Psi-Ops letterhead. He handed the letter to Lily and she read it out.
“The Psionic Special Operations Unit, squadron 24, requests the assistance of Oscar Hoffman in their continuing investigation into the illicit drug known as Second Sight. Effective immediately, Mr. Hoffman has been requisitioned to the services of the Unit until further notice. Any and all information obtained for the duration of the investigation must be shared with the Unit, including any information obtained through the insight of other members of Hyper Division.”
The lettering got significantly smaller so that Lily had to squint and press her nose almost to the paper to read it. She stopped reading aloud, more interested now in taking in every detail of the summons.
“We’re not telling them anything,” Zeke’s earlier playful tone was replaced by protective menace.
“People are dying on the streets,” Oz pleaded. “Espers are being hospitalized in record numbers.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t take drugs,” Adam said while stowing the cigarette behind his ear. I looked at Bianca and her brow furrowed.
“You saw what they were like in Ballarat,” she finally said. “Like vultures. If Ryan hadn’t threatened them, they’d have taken Will into custody. Even now, the only reason they don’t have her is because of the court order.”
“I know.” Oz rubbed his left eye and then rested his chin on the same hand. “I’m not suggesting anything.” He looked at me then. “I’d never do anything to endanger you. But we’ve got to look past ourselves and see the bigger picture. This drug is unlike anything we’ve ever known. People are taking it with the hope that they’ll turn into espers.”
“Where are we going to say this information came from?” Adam wanted to know. “They’re going to want to ask questions. They’re going to open a case file.”
“They already have a case file on Willow,” Lily said. Every head turned in her direction and she dropped her gaze to the table. “They have one on me too. There’s one on all of us, but only Willow’s and mine have red notices on them.” Zeke swore but she wasn’t finished. “Willow also has a yellow notice. So does Bianca, and Adam has a black one.”
Then she said the thing that really scared me. “They have a detainment order on Spectra.” Just perfect.
7
“What the hell?” Bianca threw her arms in the air and then got up to clear the table. Adam dragged her back down. Housework was Bianca’s way of destressing, but this was too important for her to just leave. I knew what a yellow notice was: known associations with criminal activity. It made sense considering what happened to the Street King branch of her family, and everyone knew I was Gabe’s goddaughter.
The red notices on mine and Lily’s files were understandable too. I’d contravened the Esper Containment Act and she’d broken the Tech Restriction Act. Thankfully, we were both underage and Rich got to us before the courts could throw me in the Psi-prison and Lily into juvie. Adam’s black notice was completely out of left field. A black notice meant a homicide had occurred or there was a threat of death.
The look on Adam’s face said he didn’t want to talk about it. “Thanks for that, Lil.” He spat it out through gritted teeth. I placed a hand on his arm and he jerked, but not away. It was almost as though he’d jumped in surprise that I would still touch him after learning about his black notice. With my upbringing, I was the last person who could ever condemn anyone for their past.
Oz rubbed his temple. “You can’t just hack into the Psi-Ops database, Lily.”
“I had to.” She swayed back and forth in her seat. She might not be an esper but there w
as a part of her mind that had become attuned to our output. Maybe it was because she was mildly autistic, but she knew when something was up, and our agitation was upsetting her. “We had to know what they knew about Willow.”
“Knew…” Zeke observed. “Past tense.”
“Oh God. You didn’t erase anything, did you?” Oz’s already-pale complexion completely bleached of colour.
“No.” She visibly exhaled. “I had to substitute some things.”
All I could think was that someone upstairs was looking after me and had seen fit to get rid of Rich tonight.
Adam started laughing which made Bianca’s lips twitch. Oz covered his face with his hands.
“I…” he started. “We can’t be like this. We’re not supposed to cover up for each other this way. It’s corruption!”
That word made us all pause. A queasy feeling blossomed in my gut. I started to count all the ways in which they’d had to break the laws we were meant to uphold in order to keep me from being shipped to Tasmania. I didn’t have enough fingers for it all. I’d begun to think he was right, and then Lily looked up.
“No,” she said. “This is friendship.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Oz stood up and excused himself.
“Oz, wait!” Bianca said, but his back was already turned. We stared at each other for a second and then I ran after him. He was halfway to the track before I caught up. For someone of average height, he sure had a long stride.
“Oz!” He didn’t stop walking. Out of all of us, Oz had the most even temperament.
Seeing him shook up scared me half to death. It was like the first time I figured out that my parents weren’t the be-all and end-all of authority.
I called out twice more and then got fed up. The contact must have been unexpected because his shield was uneven. I caught his mental pattern and held it, half afraid that I was going to unwittingly kick him out again. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.
He stopped in the middle of the running track and turned to me. The spotlight cast long shadows on his face. It wasn’t a face that was made for frowning. There was too much life in those gentle eyes.
